Indian Family Cookbook by Simon Daley

Author:Simon Daley [Daley, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-909108-13-4
Publisher: Pavilion Books
Published: 2008-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

THESE POTATOES are also excellent just as they are as a side dish – try them with Spiced Roast Lamb (page 58), for instance.

Beans and lentils

To Rose’s distant ancestors, farming families scratching a living in the dusty desert plains of Gujarat, pulses must have been a godsend. Unperishables packed with protein, dried peas and beans – dal as they’re known in India (usually indicating an unhusked, split pulse) – would have been a crucial staple for leaner times. Today, even in times of plenty, you’ll still find beans and lentils on the menu. Dal unites all classes, castes and religions, and is served across the subcontinent at any time of day. Eaten mixed with rice or sipped from a cup or bowl, dal can be thick and spoonable, or soupy and light. There’s a wide variety of pulses to choose from and myriad ways to cook them; we cover a small but varied selection here. All of our recipes are fairly quick to cook – lentils need little or no soaking before cooking. Although Rose often uses dried beans, soaking them overnight and cooking them for a couple of hours, we’ve opted for the convenience of canned beans in our recipes. For me, this transforms these traditionally slow-simmered dishes into brilliant standbys for the end of a busy working day, or a late-night post-pub supper rustled up in just fifteen minutes.

store your pulses in airtight containers away from bright light and they will keep for long periods of time. But unless you plan to eat dal daily, don’t be tempted to bulk-buy dried beans and lentils. Although they can keep for years, over time their flavour will deteriorate, and they will take longer to cook as they get older. Instead, buy smallish quantities of a few different pulses and use them up quickly.

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